Long story short:
I left my truck at a shop in town, a trusty shop that does good work.
Needed balljoints and alignment. Pick up the truck, drive it home, and notice a scratch on the passenger door under the molding about the size of a dollar bill in length.
I know every scratch on my truck, and this was a new one from them.
Washed my truck cause she was dirty, turns out to be a dent. I KNOW 100% this was not there when I dropped it off.
This is the first dent my truck has, and I am pretty mad about it. Its not big, maybe not even noticable to some people.
But for the guys with good eyes and who are picky (me), its there.

Should I call and reem him out? He's a nice guy whos done good work for me before. I payed alot of money, and I didn't pay that much to get a first dent in my truck.

I'm usually not the type to call up and yell, I'm easy going, but my truck is my baby and now I know shes got a dent.

Like I said, not big dent, but I know its there, it bothers me.

Sorry for the long post, just gotta vent.

 

Go get it fixed somewhere else and never mention it too him. If he does good work, that is worth his weight in gold, so don't rock the boat.

 

So I should dish out the at least $500 out of MY pocket for the body shop after I dished out $1,000 out of MY pocket for the ball joint, etc???
Doesn't make sense to me. I'm not one to yell, but he put the first dent in my rig.

I do HVAC for a living. Doing good work is half the job- leaving the job site cleaner than you found it is the other half. So by him doing good job on the truck but leavin it dented is kind of relatable (if thats a word).

Anyways, I'm just heated right now, maybe I'll calm down tomorrow. Just not sure what to do.

 

Lots of times it's the help that does that crap and doesn't say anything about it.

Keep your head and go talk to your buddy face to face and tell him.

"Hey, there is a scratch on my truck that wasn't there before. Nobody said anything when I picked it up, and didn't notice it till I got her home. I would have came back right then, but I wanted to conduct myself in a proper manor towards the fixing of this issue."

 

i'm with talyn, bring it up to him with a calm, level head and go from there

 

This actually happend to me once. My mechanic that I go to for anything I can't do myself (the list is shrinking thanks to you guys!) was shimming my bumper for me and accidently put a small almost unnoticable scratch in my bumper. I didn't notice it at all but as he was giving me my keys he pointed it out to me and asked if I would like him to fix it. I declined the offer because it was so small on a bumper that already had scratches on it that it didn't matter. Heres my idea: go to the shop and calmly explain and point out to him what happend. If he is truly a nice guy who does good work he will want to fix it for you. If he does't fix it then you can reem him out, tell him that you will tell everyone you know what he did to your truck and how he didn't fix it. If he still doesn't fix it after that then hes clearly not a very good mechanic and an even worse buisiness man, and doesn't deserve your buisiness.

 

Hey guys don't get me wrong, I'm not a hot head. I'm gonna go to him very nicely. He's the nicest guy you could talk to. He's got a few workers, so I am not blaming it directly on him- just his workers who he should take responsibility for.

Point is, whoever did it, knew they did it. I wish he would have mentioned it.
I just hate leaving my truck ANYWHERE thats why I try to do most the work myself.

The worst part is, I have a very good Ford dealership in my town, they all know me, I get a discount there too. I just figured with the economy, I'd give the business to the small time guy.

 

Good man!!

Lots of times workers dont care, they just fix things to get it done.

 

Ya I'm with everyone else. I would just go explain the situation to him and see where it goes from there. If he is cool about it he will offer to fix it and if he turns the other way and becomes an *** about it then ream him a new one.

 

I had a similiar problem. When mine was still fairly new I took it back to the same reputable dealer for warranty work. When I got it home (~100 miles) I noticed the edge of the door had bad scratches ON MY NEW TRUCK! I took it back and they told me that since I didn't notice it when I picked it up they were not responsible for once it left the lot.
In the end they repainted the whole door anyway because they said they "found a flaw on the door" and could do it under warranty. That was very nice of them because they had me.
Long story short there is nothing you can legally do but go talk to the guy. You will find out the true person he is.

 

definately bravo for giving the business to the small town company.
I'd go and talk to him about it. especially if you dropped a grand for work.
A few shops i've gone to have buddies that run other shops, so he probably wouldn't pay near as much to have it done as you would.

 

Kid probably opened the door and whamed it on the lift while working on it.
Specially if it was front end work and they needed to stear, they throw the guy who sweeps the floor or some other lackey up in there who doesn't care about life.

 

I'm with the others, bring it up but respectfully. Very possible he doesn't know of the scratch if one of his workers did it. Even if his tech denies but it looks like the lift coulda done it they will put the truck on the lift and open the door to see if it was done there. (experience with mufflers vs lift once)

 

i'm dieing to see how it went.

 

it went good. I called him after work, explained nicely, he said come on down just so he can see it.
went down, and he said if i want to go get it fixed, he'd pay for it. apologized. said usually his guys admit when the do that to a car. hes a super nice guy to deal with, i was just rippin last night cause it was the first dent.
anyways, i dont think im going to fix it, its not a huge dent, maybe not even noticable to some people but if you got a eye for nice cars, youll point it out.

all in all, pleased with the way he handled it.